Dodgers top D'backs for sweep Down Under

Mar. 23, 2014
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The Associated Press

by Nick Piecoro, USA TODAY Sports

by Nick Piecoro, USA TODAY Sports

SYDNEY â?? As they hoped, the Arizona Diamondbacks established their international identity this week in Australia. Trouble is, they'll probably be remembered as the friendly mates who kind of looked like rubbish compared to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

After Clayton Kershaw shut them down in Game 1, the Diamondbacks and right-hander Trevor Cahill spotted the Dodgers seven runs before they eventually lost 7-5 in the second game at Sydney Cricket Ground.

All told, the Diamondbacks flew about 15,000 miles round-trip to play three games â?? one an exhibition against an Australian national team that included a delivery driver and a cereal factory worker â?? and lost all of them.

The trip didn't get off to a good start. On the day they left, they learned their No. 1 starter, Patrick Corbin, was likely to require season-ending elbow surgery. Then on Opening Day, the team bus blew a tire and players walked the rest of the way to the park.

Those proved to be bad omens.

For Cahill, the outing felt like a continuation of his rough spring training â?? only worse. Cahill had a 7.88 ERA in 16 spring training innings, with the lone bright spot being that he had issued only three walks. But he walked four against the Dodgers, who showered Sydney Cricket Ground with line drives in Cahill's four-plus innings.

"I was getting hit around this spring but I felt like my command was close," Cahill said. "I was able to throw strikes when I had to. Today, I don't know if it was the adrenaline or trying to do too much, be too fine."

The Dodgers got a run on two hits and a walk in the first inning and added two more in the third. The damage might have been worse had the Dodgers not run into an out on the bases in each inning.

In the first, Andre Ethier lined a hit into the right-center field gap to score Yasiel Puig, but Ethier was cut down at second by center fielder A.J. Pollock. The Dodgers made it 3-0 in the third on an RBI single by Puig, who was out in a rundown between first and second, and a sac fly by Adrian Gonzalez.

Cahill worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth, but after he started the fifth with consecutive walks, Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson had seen enough. Both walks came around to score, and Cahill was charged with five runs on eight hits and four walks.

The Dodgers made it 7-0 before the Diamondbacks started clawing their way back, but they had dug themselves too deep a hole.

Dodgers lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu held them to just two hits and a walk in his five scoreless innings, and the Diamondbacks didn't get on the board until the eighth inning, when Mark Trumbo shot an RBI single into right field. Then in the ninth, the Diamondbacks got a two-run single from Martin Prado and a two-run home run from Trumbo, who launched a pitch from Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen out to left field.

But Jansen followed by striking out Gerardo Parra to send the Diamondbacks home with two losses.

"It's one of those bittersweet times," Trumbo said, when asked about his home run. "The reality is, we lost two games here. Personal stuff aside, we're going to have to go back and keep working hard. It's kind of a disappointment."

From Major League Baseball's perspective, the trip felt like a success, at least based on the size of the crowds for both games â?? near sellouts â?? and the atmosphere at Sydney Cricket Ground. MLB is hoping these sort of showcase events increase the sport's worldwide popularity.

"The growth (in the sport) in the next decade or so is going to be international," commissioner Bud Selig said. "That's why trips like this are so important."